HOW TO ENGAGE OTHERS AND IMPROVE OUR WORLD
We live in a time when people are ready to do something. But there’s a difference between doing and accomplishing — and the latter is something Matt Price is hoping to help people with via his new release, Engagement Organizing: The Old Art and New Scienc
Q What is your book about?
A Let’s say you want to make a change in the world, anything from improving a local bylaw to running for office. How would you go about doing it? You would probably launch a campaign of some kind, drawing in others to achieve your goal, but how do you know what kinds of actions work best?
This question is increasingly relevant now because for all campaigns the game has changed. Society is passing from a broadcast era where TV ads and programs largely set the agenda, to a digital era where the internet is changing the relationship between campaigns and the people they seek to influence.
It’s not just that we get more information online, but also that there is now an ability to engage people more individually and more directly, in large numbers, and at low cost. There is an opportunity for more of a twoway conversation with potential supporters to inspire them to play an active role in talking to their friends and neighbours, which is actually the most powerful way to communicate, along networks of trust.
The best campaigns today are designed to do this. They not only use new digital tools to identify and engage a bigger constituency more quickly, but they also use old-school organizing methods to help structure that constituency and to cultivate new leaders to themselves run pieces of the campaign. But, it’s not easy — it takes time, it takes a certain letting go of control, and it takes a willingness to listen and adapt.
The book explores these strategies and tactics and uses Canadian case studies from successful NGOs, unions, and political campaigns to illustrate them. It takes readers under the hood of campaigns of the Dogwood Initiative, OpenMedia, the Metro Vancouver Alliance, UNITE HERE Local 75, the first Naheed Nenshi mayoral campaign, the 2015 Canadian election and more.
Q Who is the target audience for Engagement Organizing?
A The book is useful to anyone who is involved in campaigns of any nature and who genuinely accepts the need to join together with others to achieve his or her goals.
Q What would you say is the single most important takeaway from the book?
A People power is back, albeit modernized. For a while, campaigns were about who had the best ads or the best media access, but today the landscape is different. People no longer want to be talked at, but talked with and given the opportunity to participate. Those that do can help campaigns be bigger and better if they are given the tools and space to do so. Today’s winning campaigns are based on engagement.
Q Why is it a particularly fitting addition to bookshelves?
A Organizing guru Marshall Ganz defines leadership as enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty. Whether we are talking Donald Trump, Korea, or climate-fuelled forest fires and hurricanes, there is a lot of uncertainty out there right now that is causing anxiety.
One response could be to put our heads in the sand and hope it all goes away, but that’s wishful thinking. Another is to regain more control over our lives and our future by joining together with friends and neighbours to pursue constructive solutions. Citizenship means showing up for more than just casting a ballot at election time, and this book provides the tools to do that.
Q You’re taking part in an event at the ANZA Club called Ignite Campaigns Vancouver. What can attendees expect?
A It will be far from a normal quiet book reading. Instead, we’ve invited people involved in campaigns to give rapid-fire “Ignite” talks where they speak to 20 slides that auto-advance every 20 seconds so that things really keep moving. As the Ignite motto goes: “Enlighten us, but make it quick!” There’ll also be a cash bar. Oh, and books for sale, too.
Q Who will be joining you for the event?
A We’ve got speakers from various campaign sectors, including politics, NGOs and unions. They include (City of Vancouver) councillor Andrea Reimer, David Suzuki Foundation fellow Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Stefan Avlijas from the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, environmentalist Tzeporah Berman, Marianela Ramos Capelo from the digital rights group OpenMedia and more.
Q What’s next?
A What’s next is really up to all of us. We face big challenges, but dreaming about potential solutions by ourselves at home isn’t going to take us where we need to go. Engagement organizing is a way to join together with others to take more control over our lives and get the results we need.